7 January 2019: Fixed a bug concerning profession performance decrease from bad career advice. Also refactored code heavily while I was at it.

Reminder: When removing or updating mods, it is good practice to clear the ScriptCache.package file from your Userdata folder.

It's time for another mod recreating scrapped EAxis content, this time inspired by some unused moodlet icons in the base game files.

What Is This Mod?
This is a pure scripting mod that adds "Give Advice" and "Ask for Advice" friendly social interactions to sims aged teen and older. Sims can give and receive good or bad advice in one of four categories: supportive, comedic, romantic, and career. The chance of a sim giving/receiving good advice is influenced by the traits of the giver as well as the relationship between the giver and the receiver. Good and bad advice from each of the four categories have different effects (see below for more info), and a sim cannot ask for or be given advice in a category until the previous effects of advice from that category have expired.

The randomly-chosen tidbits of advice that sims give or receive will be displayed in a notification tooltip, similar to asking a butler for advice. Some advice has been taken from the butler's "Ask for Advice" interaction, while some are my own creation.

Attempts to give advice will be rejected if the sims' relationship is negative. Attempts to ask for advice will be accepted regardless of relationship, although disliked sims will not appear very happy to be sharing advice...

Sims can ask for advice autonomously, but it is not heavily advertised and thus will not happen often, if ever. Sims cannot give advice autonomously to prevent NPCs from giving your sims bad advice.

Friendly and Snob sims are encouraged to give advice. Snob sims are also discouraged from autonomously asking for advice, while sims with the Loner, Socially Awkward, or Shy traits are discouraged from both giving and asking for advice. If you have Late Night, is recommended that you install my Crossed-Out Thumbnail Trait Fix to avoid a minor UI glitch for sims with the Shy trait. No expansion packs are required for this mod, however, and the interactions will function properly without the fix.

Description

Value

Base Success Chance

10% if enemies or old enemies; 25% if disliked or exes; 40% if strangers, aquaintances, or distant friends; 50% if friends, good friends, old friends, or romantic interests, 60% if best friends, BFFs, or partners, 70% if fiancees or spouses

Success Chance Increase/Decrease Per Positive/Negative Trait

15%

Traits Increasing Supportive Advice Success

Friendly, Charismatic, Good

Traits Decreasing Supportive Advice Success

Grumpy, Mean Spirited, Evil, Socially Awkward

Traits Increasing Funny Advice Success

Good Sense of Humor, Charismatic

Traits Decreasing Funny Advice Success

No Sense of Humor, Socially Awkward

Traits Increasing Romantic Advice Success

Flirty, Irresistible, Hopeless Romantic

Traits Decreasing Romantic Advice Success

Unflirty, Commitment Issues, Socially Awkward

Traits Increasing Career Advice Success

Ambitious, Schmoozer, Workaholic

Traits Decreasing Career Advice Success

Rebellious, Commitment Issues

Note: these values are tunable! See "Tuning" section for more info.

Advice Effects

Good supportive advice will grant sims a +15 "Supportive Advice" moodlet for 24 hours; these sims will also be more accepting of all socials, and their socials will be accepted more often. Similar to the "Cry on Shoulder" and "Share Worries" interactions, if the sim has the "Mourning" or "Heart Broken" moodlets, then those moodlets will receive a one-time halving of their negative effects; otherwise, one negative moodlet will be removed.

Bad supportive advice will grant sims a -20 "Unsupportive Advice" moodlet for 24 hours; these sims will also be less accepting of all socials, and their socials will be accepted less often.

Funny advice will grant sims a +15 "Funny Advice" moodlet for 24 hours and will temporarily give sims the Good Sense of Humor trait until the moodlet expires.

Bad funny advice will grant sims a -10 "Not-so-funny Advice" moodlet for 24 hours and will temporarily give sims the No Sense of Humor trait until the moodlet expires.

Good romantic advice will grant sims a +15 "Romantic Advice" moodlet for 24 hours; these sims will be more accepting of romantic socials, and their romantic socials will be accepted more often.

Bad romantic advice will grant sims a -15 "Bad Romantic Advice" moodlet for 24 hours; these sims will be less accepting of romantic socials, and their romantic socials will be accepted less often.

Good career advice will grant sims a +15 "Good Career Advice" moodlet for 24 hours and will temporarily give sims the Workaholic trait until the moodlet expires.

Bad career advice will grant sims a -15 "Bad Career Advice" moodlet for 24 hours and will lower sims' career performance by 20 points (this value is tunable; see "Tuning" section for more info).

All good advice will increase sims' relationship by 2 points; all bad advice will decrease sims' relationship by 3 points (these values are tunable; again, see below).

Tuning and Translations
Many values in this mod are tunable and can be changed through the text editor in S3PE or a similar package editing program. Many of the values are contained within the "Tuning" XML resource; however, moodlet effect values can be found in the "Gamefreak130_AdviceBuffs" XML resource, and some interaction values can be found in the "AdviceInteractions_SocialData" XML resource.

Right click and edit the file. S3PE will open Notepad and display the contents so you can change it.

Once complete, close Notepad, and save the package.

Currently, only English is supported. Translations are very welcome and much appreciated; formatted string tables and unhashed keys have been provided in the package if you wish to help. Do note, however, that the strings for the advice displayed in the notification bar are generated using the {Variation.?} dynamic expression. You can read more about how to use this here.

Compatibility and Uninstallation
Built, tested, and (mostly) working on game version 1.69. It may work on earlier versions, but it has not been tested; do so at your own risk.

As stated earlier, no expansion packs are required for this mod to run.

As these are custom interactions and moodlets, conflicts with other mods should be next-to-nonexistent -- that is, unless some doppelganger is using my exact namespaces.

Uninstallation should not create a huge problem -- simply remove the mod from the packages folder. However, to avoid potential game problems, it is good practice to ensure no sims are giving or receiving advice before removal. After removal or update of the mod, it is recommended that you delete the "ScriptCache.package" file from your Userdata folder.

Known Issues
The UI effects upon finishing the interactions are a bit borked, and do not necessarily reflect how the sims' relationships changed as a direct result of the advice given (i.e. sometimes a negative UI effect will display when there is a relationship increase, and other times no UI effect will display at all). This has to do with the way the social data is coded, and there is no easy solution.

Additional Credits

S3PE and Visual Studio 2017 for making modding stupidly easy
Armiel for her Builder's Island that makes testing quick and simple
Various modders and their scripting tutorials scattered throughout the Interwebs
Delphy for keeping this site up and running
My many test sims for putting up with my nonsense
And you, for checking out this mod!

Download files

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